Mahjong Hands and Scoring: Hong Kong Faan Chart

How scoring works in three steps

First, check that the hand is complete: four sets and a pair, or one of the special hands.

Second, add up the faan. Each pattern the hand shows earns its faan, and so do some circumstances of the win, such as drawing the winning tile yourself. Patterns stack: a hand of all pungs that includes a pung of dragons scores both.

Third, convert faan to points with the table below and work out who pays.

Everyday patterns: one faan each

These are the small bonuses that turn up in most winning hands. Three are about what the hand holds, and the rest about how it was won.

A hand of all chows scores one faan. So does each pung or kong of dragons, a pung of your own seat wind, and a pung of the round wind. If your seat wind is also the round wind, a pung of it scores both.

A concealed hand, one where you claimed no discard before the winning tile, scores one faan. A self-drawn win scores one.

Flowers count too: one faan for each flower or season that carries your seat number, and one faan for a hand with no flowers at all. All four flowers, or all four seasons, score two.

Three rare circumstances score one faan each at this table: winning on the replacement tile drawn after a kong or a flower, robbing the kong, and winning on the last tile of the wall or the discard that follows it.

Bigger hands

All pungs, four pungs or kongs and a pair, scores three faan.

Mixed one suit, a hand built from a single suit plus winds or dragons, scores three faan. Pure one suit, a single suit and nothing else, scores seven.

Small three dragons, pungs of two dragons and a pair of the third, scores five. Big three dragons, pungs of all three, scores eight. Small four winds, three wind pungs and a pair of the fourth, scores six.

Limit hands

The rarest hands are simply paid the most a hand can be worth, the limit. Most modern Hong Kong tables set the limit at 10 faan, with 8 and 13 as the other common choices. Wisteria Court Mahjong uses 10.

Thirteen Orphans is the famous one, and the only limit hand that is not four sets and a pair: one each of the 1 and 9 of every suit, each wind and each dragon, plus a second copy of any one of them. Nine Gates is a concealed hand of one suit holding three 1s, three 9s and one each of 2 to 8, plus any one more tile of that suit.

The others are all honors, all terminals, big four winds, four concealed pungs, all kongs, and two gifts of the deal: East winning with the 14 tiles dealt, and anyone winning on East’s very first discard.

From faan to points

Points double with each faan up to four, then every two faan, up to the limit. This is the half-doubling table common in Hong Kong.

In Wisteria Court Mahjong a hand with no faan at all, sometimes called a chicken hand, is worth 1 point. Tables that play a three faan minimum never see the first three rows.

Who pays

Only the winner is paid in Hong Kong style, and the points in the table are the base amount. Tables use one of two rules for a win on a discard.

Under the rule a published Hong Kong chart calls the common one, the discarder pays for everyone: four times the base, and the other two players pay nothing. Under the other rule, every player pays the base and the discarder pays double, which also comes to four times the base for the winner.

Either way, a self-drawn win is paid by all three players at double the base, six times the base in all.

Wisteria Court Mahjong uses the second rule, so a careless discard costs you more than the others without costing you everything. The four scores always add up to zero.

The minimum to win

Most Hong Kong groups play with a three faan minimum: a complete hand worth less than three faan may not be declared. Some casual games lower the minimum to one, and competitive ones may raise it.

A minimum changes how you play. You can no longer win with whatever comes; you need a plan for three faan from the start, such as one suit with honors, all pungs, or a concealed hand of chows that you hope to draw yourself with no flowers.

Wisteria Court Mahjong offers three settings: any hand, one faan and three faan. Any hand is the default, so beginners can learn the flow before they learn the chart.

Three worked examples

A plain hand. You claim a chow, finish with chows and one pung in three suits, hold one flower that is not your own, and win on a discard. No line applies, so the hand has 0 faan and is worth 1 point. At our table the discarder pays 2 and the others 1 each, and you gain 4.

A quiet hand. You claim nothing, hold four chows and a pair, draw no flowers and draw the winning tile yourself. That is all chows, concealed hand, no flowers and self-drawn win: 4 faan, or 16 points. All three players pay double, 32 each, and you gain 96.

A strong hand. You hold pungs of red dragons, of your own seat wind and of two suit tiles, plus a pair, with one flower that is not your own, and win on a discard. That is all pungs for 3, a dragon pung for 1 and a seat wind pung for 1: 5 faan, or 24 points. The discarder pays 48 and the others 24 each, and you gain 96.

Where our table differs from other charts

Hong Kong scoring has many house versions. Compared with the published chart we checked, Wisteria Court Mahjong scores a win on a replacement tile at 1 faan where that chart gives 2, and treats four concealed pungs as a limit hand where that chart gives 8. That chart also lists a few patterns our table does not score, such as mixed terminals and a hand of seven or eight flowers, and it marks seven pairs as a house rule, which our table does not play.

Our table also keeps a simple rotation. The deal passes on after every hand, where many tables let a winning dealer deal again, and the wall is played to its last tile. Scores are plain points, with no money and no doubling for the dealer.

Sources

Hong Kong Mahjong, “Hong Kong Mahjong Scoring Chart”, https://www.mahjonggame.hk/learn/hk-mahjong/scoring, read on November 9, 2026: the faan values compared here, the base points doubling every faan up to four and then every two faan (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 96, 128), the 10 faan limit with 8 and 13 as other choices, the discarder paying four base points under the common rule, a self-drawn win paying six, and the three faan minimum with casual games at one.

Mahjong Scoring, “Points Tables”, https://mahjongscoring.org/info/scoring, read on November 9, 2026: the same points from 3 to 10 faan, the two ways of paying a discard win (the discarder pays all, or everyone pays the base and the discarder pays double), and a self-drawn win paid at double the base by every player.

Tom Sloper, Sloperama, “Which mah-jongg do you play?” (FAQ 2b), https://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq02b.html, read on November 9, 2026: Hong Kong style paying only the winner.

Wisteria Court Mahjong: the chart, the points table and the worked examples come from the game’s scoring module, and our tests score the same sample hands.